Can hreflang tags still work when the Alternate URL is 301 redirecting to a translated URL in Japanese Characters?
-
My organization has several international sites 4 of them of which have translated URLs in either Japanese, Traditional Chinese, German & Canadian French.
The hreflang tags we have set up on our United States look something like this:
But when you actually go to http://www.domain.co.jp/it-security/ you are 301 redirected to the translated URL version:
www.domain.co.jp/it-セキュリティ/
My question is, will Google still understand that the translated URL is the Alternate URL, or will this present errors?The hreflang tags are automated for each of our pages and would technically be hard to populate the hreflang with the translated URL version. However we could potentially make the hreflang something customized on a page level basis.
-
Hi there,
You should add in the hreflang annotation the final URL showing the content, not one that is just 301 redirecting to another. Are you seeing errors in the Google Search Console "International Targeting" report? If you see "no return tags" errors there for Japan, then means Google is not being able to identify them.
Thanks!
-
Redirects should be avoided. If the Japanese translation of your page is located at www.domain.co.jp/it-セキュリティ/ then please don't use www.domain.co.jp/it-security/ in your hreflang tag.
If it's hard to specify the correct URL in your page HTML, try providing Hreflang info in sitemaps instead.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Optimising meta tags: How to write them perfectly without duplicating? Impact of using different keywords?
Hi friends, Generally most of the articles about tags are either title rag or header tags, but not about both. I would like to know how to write perfect title and header tags. How much they must be relevant and different? Can we use the same tags for title and H1? If we are planning to rank for different keywords, can that different keywords can be used? I'm really curious to see some interesting answers for this. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Landing page redirect along with complete content
Hi Moz community, We have a page with "keyword" we are targeting in slug like website.com/keyword/. This page doesn't have much back-links or visits like homepage. So we decided to redirect homepage to /keyword page along with complete content. Will this going to hurt? Only change anybody can notice is URL. Are there any risks involved. I think this is the best way to highlight the page we been thinking about. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Google search analytics position - how is it worked out
In our Google search analytic s graphs total clicks and impressions appear as a sold line on the graph(ie showing a result for each day) Position only shows as an occasional dot or line - not a continuous result for each day) sometimes there are days with no result for position. How do google get these results
Algorithm Updates | | CostumeD0 -
All keywords increasing rank except URL Keyword, whats going on?
Hello, Our website is a private equity firm database, privateequityfirms.com. We rank well for a number of private equity definitions and terms and have been increasing rank in those terms but unfortunately we have been losing ranking in our main keyword and url "private equity firms" .We have ranked as high as 3rd under wikipedia. The only real changes we have made are too the sitemap that is auto generated every time some thing is changed in the database. Does anyone have any ideas what is going on? I have included a Image to help show the problem. Thank you! MozAnalyticsPDF115_zpsddec64fa.png
Algorithm Updates | | Nicktaylor10 -
VRL Parameters Question - Exclude? or use a Canonical Tag?
I'm trying to figure something out, as I just finished my "new look" to an old website. It uses a custom built shopping cart, and the system worked pretty well until about a year when ranking went down. My primary traffic used to come from top level Brand pages. Each brand gets sorted by the shopping cart and a Parameter extension is added... So customers can click Page 1 , Page 2 , Page 3 etc. So for example : http://www.xyz.com/brand.html , http://www.xyz.com/brand.html?page=1 , http://www.xyz.com/brand.html?page=2 and so on... The page= is dynamic, therefore the page title, meta's, etc are the same, however the products displayed are different. I don't want to exclude the parameter page= completely, as the products are different on each page and obviously I would want the products to be indexed. However, at the same time my concern is that have these parameters might be causing some confusion an hence why I noticed a drop in google rankings. I also want to note - with my market, its not needed to break these pages up to target more specific keywords. Maybe using something like this would be the appropriate measure?
Algorithm Updates | | Southbay_Carnivorous_Plants0 -
Where can I find research on consumer search habits for fashion items?
I will be pitching to an established major UK-based fashion brand in a few days. Their brand is well-known within their target demographic and they have only recently starting selling their collection online. They are currently unconvinced of the need to use SEO for any terms other than their own brand names for which they would naturally rank with little extra effort. Can anyone point me to any research or data that shows consumer trends to research fashion purchases online or trending away from shopping mall browsing habits?
Algorithm Updates | | richdan1 -
Sudden drop after 301 redirection
Hi Experts We did a 301 redirect from an old site to a new site to get rid of any bad link juice. We recently found a big drop in rankings and traffic after google last indexed the new web pages. We did 301 using asp at page level coding. The website had 4000 approx. pages and we did 301 section by section. This is how we did as per one of the blog post in seomoz. Create a sitemap for your old domain. Create content (contact information, description of your company, indication of future plans) and something link worthy for the new domain. (You should start trying to build links early) Setup the new domain and make it live. Register and verify your old domain and new domain with Google Webmaster Tools. Create a custom 404 page for old domain which suggests visiting new domain. Old Domain error checking and fixing In a development environment, test the redirects from the old domain to the new domain. Ideally, this will be a 1:1 redirect. (www.example-old-site.com/category/sexy-mustaches.html to www.example-new-site.com/category/sexy-mustaches.html) 301 redirect your old domain to your new domain. Submit your old sitemap to Google and Bing. The submission pages are within Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster Center (This step will make the engines crawl your old URLs, see that they are 301 redirects and change their index accordingly.) Fill out the Change of Address form in Google Webmaster Tools. Create a new sitemap and submit it to the engines. (This will tell them about any new URLs that were not present on the old domain) Wait until Google Webmaster Tools updates and fix any errors it is indicated in the Diagnostics section. Monitor search engine results to make sure new domain is being properly indexed. We also did a press release with prweb to announce the new launch. We followed the steps recommended in one of the I am not sure what to do next. Can anyone suggest if its normal to see a drop and we should wait for some time or if we did something wrong? We are loosing business with every single day. Please help !
Algorithm Updates | | ITRIX0 -
Phantom Indexed: 301 Redirected Old URL Shows in Google Search Result!
Today, I have read about Phantom Indexed in Google search result. Because, I was searching about 301 redirect due to indexing of 301 redirected old URLs in Google search result rather than new landing pages. I've added my comment on jennita's blog post about 301 redirect. I would like to paste similar question over here! I have 301 redirected following 3 domains to new website... http://www.lampslightingandmore.com/ To http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps http://www.vistapatioumbrellas.com/ To http://www.vistastores.com/patio-umbrellas http://www.spiderofficechairs.com/ To http://www.vistastores.com/office-chairs I have done it before 3 months but, Google still shows me home page URL in search result rather than new landing page. You can check following search results to know more about it. For LampsLightingandMore ~ On second or third page::: For VistaPatioUmbrellas ~ On second or third page::: For SpiderOfficeChairs ~ On Second or third page::: I come to know about Phantom Indexed after raised my comment over there. So, why should not start discussion on it. Because, It's all about branding and who'll love to hang old address in front of new home.
Algorithm Updates | | CommercePundit0
